I really mean what I say. A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed… - Rex Stout

A person who does not read cannot think. He may have good mental processes, but he has nothing to think about. You can feel for people or natural phenomena and react to them, but they are not ideas. You cannot think about them.

There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions – is he tall, is he short? – he had better quit.

Bosh. I find a rival – but no, I won't flatter myself that Tecumseh Fox would consider himself a rival of Dol Bonner – I find an eminent detective in your apartment, and that alone is enough, without adding that he is concealed in your bedroom while I am discussing my business with you...